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MEMBER DIARY

Two Great English Ladies: The Virgin Queen and The Iron Lady

It should be have been no surprise to anyone, especially in the UK, that a woman would be a great leader of a nation. Margaret Thatcher, who died today at the age of 87, was not only the first female British Prime Minister, but probably the best they’ve had since Churchill. Her toughness not only brought the UK out of some dark times economically, but she was recognized as one of the pivotal figures helping to bring down the Evil Empire, the Soviet Union.

Thatcher also raised British prestige by steadfastly defending the rights of her people to choose who would govern them. I mean, of course, Thatcher’s defense of the Falkland Islands in 1982 from an illegal attempt by the Argentine government to conquer them. These are the same islands the Obama regime hypocritically refers to as the Malvinas to stick it in the eye of the Brits, especially those who live on the Islands and have repeatedly voted to remain a part of the UK.

Women leading England wasn’t first done by Thatcher, which has a long history of not only strong female rulers, but also some good ones. But there should be no doubt about who was the greatest of all of England’s and the UK’s female leaders; that would be England’s Virgin Queen, Elizabeth I.

As it was when Thatcher came to power, England at the beginning of Elizabeth’s reign was a mess. Near the end of the reign of Elizabeth’s predecessor, Elizabeth’s half-sister Queen Mary I, England had lost its remaining possession on mainland France, the city of Calais, which had been in English hands for much more than a century. The question of religion was completely up in the air as first King Henry VIII’s establishment of the Protestant Church of England had come to a standstill by the end of his reign, only to see it become more evangelical during the reign of his son and successor (and the half-brother of both Mary and Elizabeth) King Edward VI, and then came the restoration of Catholicism under Mary, who also brutally punished those who advanced the new faith. At the time of Mary’s death, her husband was the very Catholic King Philip II of Spain (he was also nominally the King of England as well) who used that marriage to repeatedly threaten England. England had been a premier European power under Henry and Edward, only to see the country go downhill under Mary. Elizabeth’s long reign and her own toughness not only saw England recover, but to begin becoming the naval force it would be in a century and for the three centuries thereafter.

But as with any other leader, Elizabeth was by no means perfect, as Thatcher wasn’t perfect. But despite their issues, history has shown them to be great leaders at a time when England and the UK needed great leaders.

We in the U.S. have seen many a great American ladies. But none have yet been able to attain the role to lead the nation as did Elizabeth I and Margaret Thatcher. And unfortunately, the only American woman likely to do so is the woman Democrat voters rejected five years ago, Hillary Clinton. What is worse for us in America, Clinton brings nothing since her political career can be summed up in this way: she’s the wife of an impeached President. Clinton helped cover up her husband’s philandering and mendacities to the courts (his perjury was the true reason he was impeached) and the American people, she was elected U.S. Senator from New York only because her husband was still President, she spent eight years as Senator doing nothing except triangulating in order to improve her chances for the White House in 2008, and spent the last four years as a completely incompetent Secretary of State. Even as many conservative women are actually proving they could be leaders by being good governors, their accomplishments are being ignored by the media so that the latter can focus on getting Clinton to be the next person to Occupy the White House, despite the fact that Clinton hasn’t shown any ability to lead anything; even her 2008 campaign wasn’t close to being good enough to keep Obama from getting the Democrat nomination. But as we saw in the last election, being incompetent doesn’t keep a Democrat out of office since the incompetency is going to be ignored by those partisans that make up the U.S. media.

One other thing. Undoubtedly, the media will attempt to falsely characterize Clinton as some sort of equivalent to Thatcher. I would call that an insult to Thatcher and her legacy. After all, as Sec. of State, Hillary never got Obama to stop calling the Falklands the Malvinas.